I just completed the penultimate week’s assignment for my second MBA class. It’s sometimes shocking how quickly this process goes; on the other hand, I also know that my final goal is still three years away.

As I mentioned at last week’s check-in, I settled on a tentative publication plan for 2013, based on what I considered realistic word count goals per day. This week, I managed my 500-word commitment from Monday through Thursday, and now I haven’t touched my manuscript since then.

I’ve been critting, instead. It’s fun, it’s a great distraction to be reading again, and I count it as a different element of my obligations to the indie writing community.

I belong to a couple different writing communities, spread across the web, and discovered in those serendipitous moments of raising your voice in a random conversation with strangers. In fact, I was just chatting with some of my group about how lucky I’ve felt to have found so many non-drama-queen types in collecting my virtual support group. The context for this: It looks like I’ll be working to develop a novella in a world this crit group established. I’m REALLY excited about the possibility of a group of very different authors each putting together a story pointing to the same world, but crossing genres and styles. Keep your eyes peeled, because we’re planning on being very ambitious in 2013.

😉

And, mentioning that crit group wouldn’t be complete without mentioning its founder, Jennifer James, whose book Hunger Embraced came out Thursday–and included one of those teary-eyed-inducing dedications I never suspected might eventually be in my future. It’s a lot of fun to be on the writer’s path some days, and there have been a collection of those days recently.

In the meantime, don’t forget to check out the ROW80 participants to see how they’re dealing with their goals.